Almost one and a half years after its launch Planck has so far fulfilled all the expectations of a vast team of scientists and engineers working on the mission in some cases for more than 15 years. After two full sky scans the quantity and quality of the data gathered is on a completely different league from all previous CMB experiments. At the moment a 1 year extension has been approved and fully funded that would see Planck operating until early 2012. With the public release of the first Planck product (the Early Release Compact Source Catalogue) planned for early January the mission has so far been an outstanding success.
In this talk I will discuss some of the less well known aspects of the preparation and planning necessary to keep the mission running smoothly and I will briefly review our current prospects for the fulfillment of the mission's scientific requirements.
Place: Physics department Meetign room on the 2nd floor.
